


Propagation

by maldraxxus-official (mechadogmarron)



Series: After the Fall [2]
Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Gen, a ghost beta read this, brief OC appearance but largely canon character focused, essentially canon compliant, more Maldraxxus headcanons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-14 10:14:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28793754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mechadogmarron/pseuds/maldraxxus-official
Summary: Marileth propagates some slimes. An old friend visits.
Relationships: Plague Deviser Marileth & Vial Master Lurgy
Series: After the Fall [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2111043
Kudos: 6





	1. Chapter 1

Slimes were the most powerful beings known to Maldraxxus. Most Maldraxxans didn't recognize their power, regrettably, but they were capable of things that no other living creature could dream of. They had no bones to hold them back, no organs to be punctured, no muscles to atrophy, no skin to tear, no nervous system with which to feel pain. The slimes he created had no souls, no minds, no hearts. While his fellow survivors scrimped and struggled, they moved through the disastrous wastes he had once called home not weighed down with anything. 

Although Kevin was increasingly making him wonder about that _no mind_ part. The ooze had been oddly quiet, protective. He didn't quite remember what had happened when he had presented his potion to the Margrave, but he did remember that his apprentice had gone to talk to Lurgy afterwards, and not long after, the agonized presence of Stradama had faded gently from his mind. 

She was gone. 

He didn't know how to feel. He loved her, for some definition of love. She had been the only one that he could truly rely on, one who wisely lead her people. He would do anything for her soul to return to Maldraxxus, if she could be reborn like a lich was reborn. But she hadn't been a lich, and whatever had happened to her, it hadn't been good. 

Kevin burbled next to him. If he hadn't known better, he would've thought the slime was expressing some kind of empathy. He bent down to pat it, leaving gooey streaks on his hand. If only he could be a slime, too. He knew the regents to do it, to melt skin, to dissolve bone. He had done it before, for the handful of liches the House of Eyes had employed. For a more body-bound creature like him, it would be impossible to reverse, but for a lich it was as simple as abandoning your old form and growing a new one. 

It would be so nice. It would be painful - not unlike the pain his Margrave had felt - but it would be over when his central nervous system died an ignoble death. He thought about it every day, during his most lucid moments. But for the most part, he had more important things to do. There were plagues to be devised, slimes to be created. Draka seemed a bit confused about his work, but she was supportive, and it was hard to deny that they had value when he mixed up a particularly corrosive batch and loosed them on the so-called House of the Chosen's seat. His Apprentice (well, Apprentices), now Maldraxxan by oath and not merely by being present in their lands for a time, were always supportive. Indeed, they were currently out gathering slime samples for reconstitution. 

But it would be nice. It was hard not to think about it, when he didn't have the company of his beloved Apprentice, or of Emeni and Heimir, who had taken to him now that they were sharing a number of soulbinds. Emeni, at least, could take him at face value and not try prying, and Heimir didn't give a shit about anything, so _she_ wasn't going to wonder over what had run between him and Stradama, how her fall had hurt him so deeply. But he couldn't think about that. Physically couldn't - even if he tried, his mind would roil and spit out something else. Like Ooz. He really needed to work on perfecting that frictionless coating of his. It was handy in a fight, good for protecting his Apprentices, who were out in the world fighting demons and loa and constructs and Primus knew what else. Ooz was a good thing to think about. 

He didn't like to think of his life before Maldraxxus. He had been a scientist, yes; that much, he knew. He had worked in the employ of his Queen - his tendency to serve directly beneath powerful women was not one he had picked up in death - and devised all matter of terrible toxins for her. He had honestly believed in what he was doing. When he saw how she used them-

He hadn't survived it. Both in the sense that he had been executed for the resulting sedition and in the sense that it had killed his faith in his people. And now he was a Maldraxxan, and he devised poisons and plagues for a powerful woman, and he had faith in his people again, but it hurt. He was happy; he was empty. What sunshine he knew was the sunshine of a spotless mind, but he couldn't keep his thoughts clear forever. He was occasionally forced into the real world, and the pain of that was unbearable. 

He patted Kevin. He needed to stop dwelling on his thoughts and do something. Perhaps - 

He could hear one of his Apprentices returning before he actually saw him. His heart leaped at the idea of not being alone for a moment, though it was never long with these adventuring types. Draenei hooves created a distinct clip-clapping sound like nothing else, so he knew it was the hunter. The slime extractor was still strapped to his back, and as he moved through the halls his twin hyenas made a terrible ruckus. At least they hadn't stolen anyone's legbone. That had been a very exciting day at the Seat of the Primus, especially when Deathfang had gotten his fangs on it in a demented game of catch. 

"Ah, my Apprentice! You've returned!" 

"Indeed." He foisted the slime extractor at him. "Your slimes, good sir. Let Plaguey know his help was much appreciated, okay?"

"Of course, my dear Apprentice! Have a wonderful day out there!" 

Work to be done, at last! Idle hands made idle minds, and idle minds were never good. He emptied the slime samples from the extractor and reconstituted them with a thickening agent of powdered Marrowroot, watching them jiggle. They were helpless and weak like this, with none of the strength they'd need to be weapons in the hand of Draka's new, unnamed house. She had denied the title of Margrave, but she was Margrave to him. They could be grown quickly using anima infusions, but even with his Apprentices' aide, anima was hard to come by. This necessitated a different approach. 

First, though, was the monitoring. Slimes had a will of their own, and by observing how they moved, how they jiggled, what they did when they came into contact with one of their own kind, how well they learned the very basic commands such small slimes could understand, you could determine what sort of will one had. It would take days of careful watching and training, days full of nothing but slime and perhaps occasional trips to the Forge of Bonds with his many soulbinds. He couldn't imagine anything better, not for the world. 

In a new environment, slimes were given to explore, feeling out their boundaries, establishing their space. They didn't like getting too close to one another; unlike ensouled beings, they could only ever be a danger to their own kind, at least unless trained otherwise. They were not creatures of love or honor; no slime had a Soulbind. He watched as they felt out the edge of their pen, dispersing into almost perfectly evenly distributed lines. When one moved, the others followed, keeping them far apart. An interesting property. 

He watched and watched, unaware of the passage of time except when one of his beloved Apprentices needed his assistance at the Forge. After a few days, he had identified three slimes among them that seemed to have optimal traits for Maldraxxian warfare. He set them aside for propagation and set the others aside for anima extraction; it was an unpleasant process and he would not do it himself. 

He began to prepare the propagating mixture, mixing in a bit of Bloop's plasma to help set the size of the ooze to a nice medium. None of the prepared samples had been caustic, and he wasn't interested in trying to mix a caustic batch through additives; it was less reliable, and anyways these would do nicely for helping clear out the plagued areas of the old Seat. Slimes gave way to slimes. Indeed-

"Lost in work again?" 

"Oh, Lurgy! Yes, indeed!" He turned around to see his old friend. Lurgy had dealt with the fall of their House with a good deal more grace than Marileth had, but he was often limited in mindset. "I've set about propagating a new breed of slimes. They should be about yey-high."

"No way. You can't propagate something that small, can you? You could fit these in a sample vial." 

"Ah, but indeed I can! I've been researching the topic with the utmost care, and I've found ways to catalyze the growth reaction into a more advanced lifeform using an existing slime's plasma. You might find it interesting at that mixing pool of yours - I heard you created a wonderful violet ooze?"

"Oh, that thing? What a waste. At least it cleaned out the pit." He shook his head. "I don't know how you get them so friendly. All our mixing has had some wonderful, wonderful results - and it's proven a moderately efficient way to extract anima - but we've yet to generate anything that one of those little Kyrian owls could ride around like a tauralus." 

"Oh, yes, they're marvelous, isn't it?"

Lurgy shrugged. "It's something, alright. Are you serious that you can propagate a full-sized, functional slime from a sample tube, though? We've got to share notes." 

"Of course! All research should be shared. I'll have mine ready for you quick as Bloop." 

\---

It took perhaps thirty minutes to gather copies of all his notes together. Unfortunately, dear as his apprentices were, they weren't much for scribing. Although he'd seen one of his Apprentices milling herbs in the Seat while waiting on another, so perhaps there were some among them who might've been able to help. He didn't bother to stitch the edges - Lurgy could clean them up if he'd like to. 

"Delightful. I'm sure there's much to learn! Here are the notes from what we've learned at the concoction pool. I think you'll find the part on blue-red combinations especially interesting. Though the mistake itself was quite violent, its plasma had a calming effect on one of the local deathrocs. One of the Champions got it to carry him around like a galescreamer. Oh, and I also had some samples for you." 

From his bag, he produced an earthhide vial bag with five quartz tubes. "One is more leechblood. We're running out of uses for it, but if you could study superior strategies for anima extraction, we might be able to do some work on this damned drought, since we can generate them from the burning extracts so quickly. The second through fourth are more Violet Mistake. Propagate this one before you bother propagating the last. And _as for said last_..." 

He pointed to the strange green plasma. Marileth could swear he'd seen the wonderful, vibrant, beautiful shade somewhere before, but he couldn't recognize where. It made him want to cry, though he no longer had tear ducts, as far as he knew - he hadn't removed his armor in quite some time, and what lay beneath was a bit of a mystery even to him. 

"It's from the old Seat, from one of the Plaguefallen. Something quite special, if you're aware of my meaning. I won't speak of it so far from home-" he glanced out the door, as if to imply that Heirmir or Melvix might disapprove -"but it's of incredible strategic value. I don't believe it carries a soul anymore, but it may have a sort of resonance."

"From one of the Plaguefallen?" He couldn't help but repeat it. No one had dared tried to propagate those hideous, pained existences. The opinion, as of yet, was that there were things too unkind for even a Maldraxxan, and although the House of Plagues had perhaps a more lax set of ethics than most, there was no way they could approve of something quite so hideous. "Is it-"

"I can't answer who it is, but I paid a Champion quite the price. Of course, I never believed it could be returned to life - my intent in saving it for you was merely that you might use it as, I don't know, a mix-in of some sort - but I'm glad to hear there's a chance of it. Just don't propagate it until you're ready. I believe that the violet slime may help quell this one's incredibly violent behavior, but I have no way of knowing without actually seeing it happen." 

"Thank you. I'll get these going. Oh, and Lurgy?"

"Yes?" 

"Thank you for looking out for me." 

Lurgy would've smiled, had he still had lips. "We Maldraxxans have to stick together. These Champions - your Apprentices - they're great and all, but I don't trust them to stick around once they've got their folks back home to Azeroth. We can hope they figure out whatever mess they made, but we can't rely on it. You're too soft with them, letting them Soulbind with you. You give them what they want and they give you what you want."

"I like Soulbinding with them. It feels strange when they pop back to Azeroth, of course, but it's an interesting feeling. It's like being alive again, at least a little bit."

"Primus, I can't even imagine. It sounds horrible. Life is a terrifying thing, if you ask me. Better to know our place here." Lurgy shrugged. "But that's enough talking. I've got to get mixing! I found a few champions interested in mixing a nice even blend, so we'll see if they can actually manage it. I'd love to see what kind of thing it mixes up." 

"Let me know! Perhaps you'll create a yet more perfect lifeform." 

"What, like a bigger slime?"

Marileth nodded. "A bigger slime."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you liked this! Should be at least one more, and I might write about The Stolen Legbone Incident at some point too. :P 
> 
> As an aside: One thing that annoys me in Shadowlands is the inconsistency about what happens to the dead: at one point, you kill a quest NPC, and your fellow Maldraxxan says "may his soul never be reborn." But we're also told the dead are consigned to oblivion per a Blizzcon FAQ, and several lines in Bastion support that. I've tried to include some ambiguity here as to what the Maldraxxans believe will happen to them when they die once more.


	2. Oxeina

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marileth gives life to Lurgy's gift. A mage learns where her new kicks come from.

Something about the final vial called to him. And he knew why — knew it, deep in his soul — but he couldn’t remember what he knew.

He had spent the past couple of weeks wondering about it as he finished the other work assigned to him. The Leech extraction had gone well: they were getting a good fifteen units of anima from each, which wasn’t much but added up with Lurgy mixing dozens a day. The violet propagation was effective keeping them calm enough to be put down, and the cycle, though inefficient, was consistent.

Now it was time to propagate this ooze. And for the first time since he had lost his linear thought capabilities, Marileth was pretty damn certain he was scared. 

He pulled out the slim vial of glowing green liquid, staring into it. Something about it calmed the roil of his soul ever-so-slightly, and at the same time made him feel even crazier, even less like himself and more like somebody else. He hadn't shown it to anyone, like Lurgy had advised; despite his trusting nature, he trusted the others from Plaguefall the most of all, especially the Vial Master. Though the two of them had never formed a Soulbind, largely for strategic purposes, the man's keen mind was impressive. And the beings being created - huge, dangerous, and aggressive - were wonderful. 

But he wouldn't be able to hide it any longer. And somehow, the idea scared him. 

He poured the green liquid into his propagation chamber and spent a few minutes wondering about the best catalyst before deciding on Kevin's. The purple slime had gotten him this far, and it would get him farther. He took one of the many samples and dripped it in, along with some of the mixed Violet Mistake plasma he had generated in an earlier experiment. 

It began to bubble immediately and _very aggressively_. Bigger beaker, bigger beaker. He rushed across the room, wishing he had a larger lab here in the Seat, but then again no one else had anything even remotely approaching lab space at all, even though his "lab" was a bunch of stuff in a corner of the Forge of Bonds room. He was lucky Emeni and Heirmir didn't really give a shit about his work (in much the same way he didn't especially care about Heirmir's forging, as beautiful as it was). But anyone could wander in and ask, and then he'd need to-

"Oh, hey! Working on something new?" 

"Apprentice!" Marileth didn't know whether to feel the usual joy of seeing one of his beloved Apprentices, or the fear that Lurgy would be right and it would go badly. But he set that aside. It was, after all, his Apprentice. "Yes indeed! The Vial Master has provided me with a wonderful new slime for propagation."

"I didn't realize you two knew each other. I don't think I've ever seen him away from his post at the House of Plagues survivor's camp." 

"Oh, yes, he doesn't leave often, and never for as long as I'd like! But he and I got on quite well back in the day. Of course, he got along well with everybody, so that's no surprise. He might seem odd to you, but to a child of the House of Plagues, he's everything anyone could dream of! He'll be remembered long after he goes on to Oblivion." 

"Interesting." She looked at the vial. "That's of the Azerothian style, isn't it?"

"Oh, a fellow alchemist! Yes, he paid a Champion like you a great sum to retrieve it from one of the powerful slimes of our fallen Seat. We don't believe there's a cure for what ails them, unfortunately, but the hope is that we might give them a new sort of practicality in our army."

"Any edge is an edge when you've got as many enemies as we have, I suppose." She shrugged. "Well, I wish you good fortune. Don't go melting the Seat, alright?"

He laughed. "Draka would have my head! And then she'd give it to Deathfang to play with. Imagine the indignity!" 

"Ah, I hope to ever see the day." And with that, the elf waved and returned to the Forge of Bonds. Interesting. 

Well, perhaps Lurgy had been wrong, then. He was prone to fits of paranoia, like many of the older Maldraxxans. This was not the first time he'd seen chaos or combat, not the first time he'd known scheming. He added in the multipurpose violet catalyst he'd been working on, watching the creature shudder. Was it in pain? It shouldn't have been _capable_ of it; it didn't have a full soul, just a remaining spiritual resonance, and anyways it didn't have a central nervous system either. It simply boggled his already quite boggling mind. 

He touched it, and it glorbed itself around his hand, buzzing slightly. There was something comforting in the gesture. For both of them, he thought, as strange and even impossible as that was scientifically. But some things went beyond science; many aspects of the magical world were still poorly understood, even by the finest minds, and there was nothing to fear in that. It was simply outside his control. Outside his control, like the fall of his people, like the loss of his closest companion, like the madness that had overtaken even the gentlest souls. 

He shook his head. There was no time to dwell on that. He picked his hand up, and the ooze slowly slorped away back to the ground. What a delightful creature. Most of them didn't start really showing any signs of recognizing him as "not food" until days into the training process, and this one was only just catalyzed and already seemed to recognize that although he contained at least some delicious old rotten meat, that didn't mean he was dinner. Well, at least it probably understood. Possibly it had been trying to eat his hand, but he had a feeling that wasn't it, and in the absence of evidence Marileth liked to trust his gut. 

The ooze was small, helpless in this state. He couldn't let anything happen to it. Thankfully, being a Maldraxxan, he was more equipped to protect it than most. Maldraxxans didn't sleep, and although they could eat to help restore damage to their bodies - Baron Halis of the Constructs was famously quite a glutton - they couldn't starve without food. He would stay with it, at least until it was strong enough to survive minor accidents. 

What to call it? Oozes could _sort of_ learn their names - well, Kevin sort of had, and he was evidence it was possible, at least. _Her_ name popped into his head, unbidden, but he shook his head. That wouldn't do. She had honor; deserved to have her name remembered more absolutely. Back in the old days, when they'd had the epitaphs, she would've had the finest of them all. But there were no more epitaphs anymore, no more records of the who, the what. There were no memories of who they were. She would fade as soon as the last House of Plagues member forgot her. 

Well, maybe not. He'd talk to Draka. They could discuss. It would be nice to have... something. 

That was a personal matter, though, one that he usually couldn't even bear to think about. How strange. He took a look at the ooze. Well, there were all sorts of lovely names,. This slime would be, at least for now, Oxeina, though her beautiful green shade was finer and lighter than even the shiniest bit of Oxxein. She was beautiful in a way that was hard to explain to someone who didn't respect slimes the way he did. But that was good enough. 

"Oxeina," he crooned, gentle and soft even for him, "Oxeina, Oxeina, you are Oxeina."

The slime burbled - maybe happily, maybe neutrally. Slimes just tended to burble, regardless of their mood. Some would argue slimes didn't have a mood, and what he was perceiving to be one was actually just a slime acting as a slime did, but he knew how happy Bloop got when Kou came around to visit him. They had bonded, in that special way that only someone with a good heart and a positive attitude could. Slimes knew when they weren't respected. Slimes knew a lot of things. 

He didn't pick her up, not afraid to be too gentle but aware that certain affectations were more of the ensouled's nature. But he thought about it. "You and I are- Oh, hey, Apprentice! I didn't see you there!"

The little gnomish mage laughed. "Lot of people don't. Worked beautifully back in the old days, fighting the Horde... You know, we don't do that anymore. There's arena skirmishes, I suppose, but they're not really the same. _In_ teresting slime." She rolled the word off her tongue, almost experimental in how she pronounced it. It was the kind of interesting Marileth had heard, so long ago he could hardly recall, from coworkers who thought his work was pointless. In the House of the Plagues, no one bothered to be subtle like that. If you thought someone's project was pointless, you asked them, hey, what's the point? And they told you, and you were satisfied. A much better system. 

"Lurgy suggested I grow this one."

"Lurgy?" 

"Yes."

"Did it come in a little glass bottle with an _R_ on the side?" 

"Indeed, how did you know?"

She stiffened, and instinctively he moved himself between her and the slime. Perhaps Lurgy hadn't been so paranoid after all. After a long moment's tension, she shook her head. "I guess I shouldn't expect anything else from Maldraxxus. I was part of a group that downed the..." She looked at him for a second. "The creature that that sample came from. It was in a lot of pain, and very scared. We were doing it a favor. Seems wrong to bring it back."

"Ah, but think of the fine red slimes. Those come from those nasty pulsating leeches Lurgy samples when you mortals summon them. A slime sample lacks the original soul of the being it's sampled from, but retains the unique structure of anima that gave them life in the Shadowlands. I imagine, from your tone, it was one of the Plaguefallen? Given that, it is very likely that anima structure could carry evidence for a cure, or at least a way to numb their pain until a cure can be found." A cure that came too late from Stradama. 

"Well, that's wonderful news, then. I know your people have suffered immensely as of late." 

"We have. In fact - where did you get those shoes?"

"Oh, these?" She lifted a foot, showing off an enchanted slipper. "An aberration named Globgrob. Why do you ask?"

"They were-" He fought the urge to grab his head at the searing pain that suddenly ran through it. "She never could figure out where they'd went."

"Oh." The mage looked like she might say something, but there were no words. The awkward silence stretched until eventually she blurted out some kind of apology and blinked off. 

Marileth's brain swam. Really swam, like it hadn't in a long time, thoughts that he should no longer be able to have coming to the surface. It felt like a wildcat scratching the insides of his skull, eating at him from the inside out. He shouldn't have been able to. He shouldn't have been able to do a lot of things anymore. He'd been affected, indirectly, sure, but affected. There was a reason he no longer removed his armor; he did not know what lay beneath. It was a terrifying prospect. 

And then, all of a sudden, it stopped. The world righted itself once more. His Apprentice would return soon, and all would be well. It sure was strange how sometimes his apprentice was a worgen priest and sometimes a gnomish mage and on occasion a draenei hunter and once or twice even a human death knight, but he wasn't going to question it. The world was a lovely place. Why, he could barely remember what his apprentice had resembled before! 

"Oxeina," he crooned once more, picking the little ooze up. "Oxeina, I think you're something special."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Stradama's Misplaced Slippers" still make me laugh. What an item.


End file.
